It's still cool to be an entrepreneur, insists James Caan
do it too. I had a business plan sent to me the other day by an 80-year-old. My youngest investment was nine-year-old James Buckley on the Children in Need Dragons’ Den special. I think it just goes to show that Dragons’ has had a profound impact.”
And speaking personally as an entrepreneur, he claims his religious upbringing has always been a blessing in the world of business, saying a moral background is more important to success than taking a hard-nosed attitude.
A year ago he started to get involved in the Projects Abroad scheme helping British children explore their Pakistani heritage. He says his father – a businessman who wanted his son to go to university and was shocked when Nazim Khan decided to officially change his name to James Caan – was a huge influence on his attitude to business, and he wanted to help more people improve their lives by learning more about where they came from.
He says: “I think faith generally is about spirituality and I think that whether you’re Christian, Jewish or Muslim, most people who believe in something higher than themselves and the fundamental principles of all religions to be good is the good thing. Anyone I have met in life who has strong moral values is a good human person.
"I think again, having strong moral values in business is very important. My strong principle is you need to be adopting an attitude that allows people to succeed. Business isn’t about people winning and losing. It’s about creating an environment that allows everyone to win.”
Although he has been head of private equity house Hamilton Bradshaw for more than four years, Caan says he is expecting more people to be coming to him with his Dragons’ Den hat on in the coming months, after seeing private equity wiped out by the spectacular collapse among the banks.
“Until the liquidity in the financial institutions recovers private equity will be pretty slow,” he says. “When the banks aren’t lending, the two go hand in hand. I think there is still a very strong angel network of major investors who want to back business. I’m still out there.”
And potential investors could probably do worse than look at Caan’s recent choices for a sign the market is turning round, given the prescient funder’s record. Recent purchases include a premium business-class airline and a property finding website. Could this be a sign of a turnaround in the aviation and property markets? Watch and see...
• James Caan, “The Real Deal – My Story From Brick Lane to Dragons’ Den” is out now, published by Virgin Books and priced at £18.99, ISBN: 9781905264452
